Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
“I’m talking about my girl. My little girl. You have a daughter.”
“I can’t say I understand what you’re feeling, sir. I can say I’d imagine I’d feel the exact same as you about now.”
“But what would you doabout it?” Joe Bob said, eyes shifting, searching into Isaac’s.
Isaac’s eyes remained still pools gleaming from the surrounding scar tissue.
“Fifty thousand. Cash. Tax free,” Joe Bob said in a whisper.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Please,” Joe Bob said. He enclosed his hand around Isaac’s, pressing it to the smooth glass.
“Drive me on back to the site or fire me, sir,” Isaac said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m just not in that line of work anymore.”
Joe Bob released the other man’s hand.
“I’ll meet you at the truck. Take you back to the site for your shift,” Joe Bob said. He seemed to shrink, to recede into a smaller space than he occupied before.
One of the men at the bar started to make a remark as Isaac made his way to the door. Something about two men holding hands and this wasn’t that kind of place. He was heading for his punchline until Isaac met his gaze for a second in passing. The wag turned back to the bar and drained his Bud instead of finishing his sentence.
Joe Bob dropped him at the office shack. There was no talk on the drive back.
Isaac worked his own shift. When Wayne Spinelli called in to say his wife was sick and couldn’t watch the kids on her own Isaac agreed to work a double and was on the site until morning.
The judge reached for the hockey puck he used for a gavel in place of hammer. It was autographed by Bobby Orr and encased in Lucite. The judge was a Philadelphia transplant. Each time he brought the puck down he imagined he heard the score buzzer going off at the Spectrum in South Philly.
“I am granting a continuance in this matter until . . ” The judge held the paper it in his hand and lowered his eyes through the bottom portion of his glasses. “February the twelfth, ten AMin this courtroom. Until then, happy holidays.”
The puck came down. He shoots. He adjudicates. The crowd roars.
“Another fucking continuance,” Matt Torrance said with some heat once he and Isaac were out in the courthouse lobby.
“He didn’t even show up,” Isaac said.
“Your father-in-law? The prick? Why should he show up? He already paid for the continuance. Why waste his own time?” Matt’s nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Matt, I know you’re my advocate but you don’t need to get this pissed off. It’s not like I’m going to pay you extra for giving a shit.”
“I need a drink. You need a drink?”
“Coffee. I have a shift later.”
They picked a place within easy walk of the county courthouse. A faux-Irish bar that had been a real Irish bar before the neighborhood gentrified. They snagged a couple of stools at a bar packed with lawyers, clerks and other cogs in the machine of county politics.
“Is there anything we can do to stop these continuances? This is the third one,” Isaac said.
“The good doctor is going to continue to drive you into the poorhouse. He’s running the clock out on your finances. And, no, there’s not a damned thing I can do but stamp my loafers.” Matt sighed.
“I’m not getting any closer to custody. Once a week visitation isn’t cutting it. Being without Merry is killing me.”
“You know if he crushes you on custody he’ll move to curtail visitation or try and limit it further.”
Isaac nodded over his coffee.
“What did you do to make this guy hate you so much?”
“He blames me for Arlene’s death.”
“Cancer, right? How’s that work? How’s he blame you for that? He’s a doctor, for Christ’s sake.”
“I stressed her. I wasn’t there. Neglect. I don’t know. Grief doesn’t have to make sense,” Isaac said.
“I have to be honest with you, I am not optimistic. At the risk of my own job security I have to tell you it doesn’t look good,” Matt said. He swirled a stick in his highball.
Isaac sipped coffee.
“Your father-in-law draws a lot of water in this county. He’s got money and friends and one hell of a reputation as a neurosurgeon. He’s a generations-long local and you’re not. Me, I never met a neurosurgeon who wasn’t some kind of weirdo but people actually likethis prick. Plus he has the cash to nickel and dime you on legal fees forever. I mean, you’re making maybe thirty kay a year? Less? You’ll wind up with nothing and still not be allowed to see your little girl.”
“That bad?”
“Worse. Like I said, I feel it. Which means I know it but I can’t say how I know it. He’s going to win custody and come after you even harder to take away all your parental rights. You live alone in a one-bedroom going paycheck to paycheck. He’s not only going to show that you can’t support a child but that you shouldn’t have access to Mary.”
“Merry.”
“Say again?”
“Merry, not Mary. Her name is Meredith.”
Matt waved that aside.
“Right. Right. Right. What I’m saying is that this doctor won’t be happy until you look like the lovechild of Ted Bundy and Tonya Harding.”
“Tonya-?”